"Scouts of the Silver Fox Patrol and also the raving Raven that we have wished on us, there must be no good turns on this hike. We're going the same way the crow flies, only different. The first time we have to turn to right or left we will have to admit we're beaten, and come home. We'll have to turn back like somebody or other who started for some place once upon a time in the third grade history--an explorer. The battle cry is 'ONWARD.' If we do any good turns they'll have to be up and down, not to right or left. Anybody that wants to stay home can do it. At five o'clock this afternoon we intend to plant the Silver Fox emblem under that big poplar tree on west ridge. We'll start a fire there so all the world can see. That fire will mean triumph. It will mean we went in a bee-line. If we have to push Little Valley out of the way we'll do it--it isn't so big. We'll cross the valley----" My mother said, "You'd better wear your rubbers." I said, "Do you think Christopher Columbus and Henry Hudson wore rubbers? At five o'clock this afternoon you look over to west ridge and see what you see. We intend to go straight--it says in the handbook a scout lives straight--but we can beat that, we can _go_ straight. We are going to go in a bee-line for that tree and take possession of it in the name of the Silver Fox Patrol B. S. A. This is the only real boy scout drive that ever happened--all others are imitations. This is the famous bee-line hike invented by Westy Martin. We're off!" So then we raised our banner and started out. It was a big piece of cardboard fixed onto a scout staff and on it was printed with shoe-blacking: THE BEE-LINE HIKE OF THE SILVER FOX PATROL. GET FROM UNDER, EVERYBODY AND EVERYTHING. Our first mishap was at the end of my lawn, when Pee-wee's garter broke and a lot of junk fell on the ground when he stooped down to fix it. "Got a safety-pin?" he wanted to know. I said, "Pick up your coffee-pot and things and put them in the megaphone and come ahead. Do you think we're going to start out to conquer the world with safety-pins?" CHAPTER V A STUMBLING BLOCK Little we thought that inside of an hour we'd be on the road to fame. I don't mean that we turned to the right or left to get into the road. We just kind of bunked into fame. That hike was only seven miles long but in one way it went all the way out to the Pacific coast. Maybe it's in China by this time for all I know. While we were going down the hill to get into Bridgeboro, Pee-wee said, "We ought to look kind of invincible, like conquerors." I said, "Well, as long as you're the official junk wagon you might as well carry the standard." "The what?" he wanted to know. "The standard," I said; "that's Latin for banner. Didn't you ever hear of the Standard Oil Company?"